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On 11/01/2020 at 16:17, phil-b259 said:

Naturally things may have improved since the articles I saw were written but I definitely saw references to the fact that the only way the engineers could get ECTS to work reliably down the hole was to switch off the ATP system. If so it would be most informative to have some engineering fact based clarity - because there is no doubt the engineers have had significant problems and its a bare faced lie to say otherwise (not that you did of course Simon)

 

I had a similar impression, but I've seen subsequent comments suggesting the issues weren't as intractable as some suggested and the real sticking point had proved to be the 345s - thankfully even that seems to have made progress with recent software updates, with training on ETCS/Heathrow imminent?

 

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At a more mundane level, is there anything still standing in the way of bringing the 345s on the Reading services up to their full 9-car formations?  As expected (and I'm not very sure of what TfL were expecting) the reduction from 8-car 387 to 7-car 345, along with the reduction in seating in the 345s is making any journey from West Drayton towards Paddington an exercise in standing, not even relieved at Ealing Broadway. So far, Crossrail, or such of it as we have, isn't exactly an improvement.

 

Jim

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32 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

At a more mundane level, is there anything still standing in the way of bringing the 345s on the Reading services up to their full 9-car formations?  As expected (and I'm not very sure of what TfL were expecting) the reduction from 8-car 387 to 7-car 345, along with the reduction in seating in the 345s is making any journey from West Drayton towards Paddington an exercise in standing, not even relieved at Ealing Broadway. So far, Crossrail, or such of it as we have, isn't exactly an improvement.

 

Jim


Hi,

 

There has been some testing of 9-cars out to at least Twyford, but they are still testing the new software (7-Car 345s have Electrostar software, where as the 9-Car 345s will have Aventra software).

 

Simon

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23 minutes ago, St. Simon said:


Hi,

 

There has been some testing of 9-cars out to at least Twyford, but they are still testing the new software (7-Car 345s have Electrostar software, where as the 9-Car 345s will have Aventra software).

 

Simon

As an ex-traction equipment engineer, that a 9-car train requires different software to its (9-2) car version is a bit mind-boggling. Even more so when it is considered that they have been in service for nominally 2.5 years now.

 

Jim

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16 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

As an ex-traction equipment engineer, that a 9-car train requires different software to its (9-2) car version is a bit mind-boggling. Even more so when it is considered that they have been in service for nominally 2.5 years now.

 

Jim


Hi,

 

The Electrostar software was just to get them in service (I assume), the Class 710s were the first to get the Aventra software (hence all the delays), and now they are going back upgrading the 345s to new software and the best time to do that is when you are inserting two new coaches rather than on the in-sevice trains.

 

Simon

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9 hours ago, St. Simon said:


Hi,

 

The Electrostar software was just to get them in service (I assume), the Class 710s were the first to get the Aventra software (hence all the delays), and now they are going back upgrading the 345s to new software and the best time to do that is when you are inserting two new coaches rather than on the in-sevice trains.

 

Simon

I can't see there being a great deal of difference in terms of train control software that would make the Aventras much different to the Electrostars, other than, possibly, the processing of defect reporting from the various equipment groups. The software used to control the traction drives and other "intelligent" equipments is particular to them and should not vary significantly in relation to the train formation. We will just have to wait and see (and carry on standing for our 20-25 minute journeys).

 

Jim

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On 17/01/2020 at 21:14, jim.snowdon said:

At a more mundane level, is there anything still standing in the way of bringing the 345s on the Reading services up to their full 9-car formations?  As expected (and I'm not very sure of what TfL were expecting) the reduction from 8-car 387 to 7-car 345, along with the reduction in seating in the 345s is making any journey from West Drayton towards Paddington an exercise in standing, not even relieved at Ealing Broadway. So far, Crossrail, or such of it as we have, isn't exactly an improvement.

 

Jim

It is quite interesting up at that end of the route that when a GWR service isn't far behind a bloated underground train plenty of passengers wait to get on the real train - even if it has hard seat 'cushions'.  Overall the timetable out to Reading is something of a mess with awkward gaps,  lack of westbound connections off the. branches, and erratic running times.  Quite what TfL's objectives are, apart from sticking up their (usually irrelevant) posters at stations which they don't manage I'm not at all sure but it definitely doesn't seem to be based on offering a sensible interval/connectional timetable for local travellers.  So far it's definitely been a step backwards from the previous 100% GWR Electrostar local service.  On Monday last what was until mid December a 10 mile, 30 minute,  journey with an intermediate change took me over 45 minutes and it's already noticeable that what were some busy branch trains connecting into off-peak trains to Padddington are carrying fewer people although admittedly it is January and that always makes a difference to the volume of passengers.

 

And from what i've been told TfL don't seem very keen to get involved with local commuter and rail user groups.

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Reading through recent posts in this thread (and the Class 800 and Stadler Flirt ones) makes me wonder what procedure is or should be used to determine whether the benefits supposed to be delivered by such fantastically complex new trains and rail projects outweigh the now obvious costs in terms of both finance, delay and lack of resilience that accompanies them.

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2 hours ago, locoholic said:

Reading through recent posts in this thread (and the Class 800 and Stadler Flirt ones) makes me wonder what procedure is or should be used to determine whether the benefits supposed to be delivered by such fantastically complex new trains and rail projects outweigh the now obvious costs in terms of both finance, delay and lack of resilience that accompanies them.

Strange to relate but many people said the same when BR first put the HSTs into traffic, especially in a hot summer.

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6 hours ago, locoholic said:

Reading through recent posts in this thread (and the Class 800 and Stadler Flirt ones) makes me wonder what procedure is or should be used to determine whether the benefits supposed to be delivered by such fantastically complex new trains and rail projects outweigh the now obvious costs in terms of both finance, delay and lack of resilience that accompanies them.

 

What are the alternatives?

 

Never add more capacity to the system?  That leads to complaints as well.

 

Never add new equipment?  That drives up costs as maintenance gets more expensive as the rolling stock gets older and less reliable.

 

Building new railways, improving existing railways, and building/accepting new trains have pretty much always faced cost issues and initial reliability problems throughout the history of the railways.

 

Can we try and do better?  Probably.  But 100+ years of experience indicates we are unlikely to ever eliminate these issues.

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What we should do, and was often done in the past (though not with the BR prototype diesels, unfortunately) is to build and test prototypes thoroughly before going for large builds.  

But that won't happen today both because the government always wants improvements yesterday (and cheaply) and because there is no organisation with the long term approach needed to handle such projects.

Jonathan

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49 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

What we should do, and was often done in the past (though not with the BR prototype diesels, unfortunately) is to build and test prototypes thoroughly before going for large builds.  

But that won't happen today both because the government always wants improvements yesterday (and cheaply) and because there is no organisation with the long term approach needed to handle such projects.

Jonathan

 

Nice rant! :lol:

 

But do we have conclusive evidence for this?  I thought there were well-documented troubles with all kinds of BR prototype diesels. Some might say that's normal for any prototype, especially when it's "new technology" - and back then it was new technology for BR, wasn't it? 

 

Plus, from other people's long rants on the topic, I'd got the impression the general consensus was the opposite way round. i.e. we keep complaining that train operating companies (or Hornby) keep promising us new trains "soon", and then disappointing us because "soon" isn't "right now", and they (and the manufacturers)(or Hornby) keep spending more time and more money on testing new trains.

 

It looks like we want it both ways. Complain that "they" are taking too much time, and then complain that "they" didn't take long enough.

 

If the "track record" (sic) is correct, it's either the manufacturers that will try and skimp on the testing (and its cost), or (behind the scenes) the leasers object to paying the manufacturers to do that for long periods, as it increases the capital cost before they start leasing the trains to the TOCs. I refer my honourable colleague to the Velim railway test circuit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velim_railway_test_circuit - often used by manufacturers before introducing new trains to the UK, and widely publicised when they do so. e.g.

https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/new-trains-for-west-midlands-begin-testing-in-czech-republic

and

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/first-new-caledonian-sleeper-rolling-stock-arrives-at-velim-test-track-

and so on (you can do the search)

 

The last link is a good "case study" - testing was done, but not enough, and lots of problems when rushed into service.

e.g.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/1954274/michael-matheson-tackled-over-caledonian-sleeper-complaints/

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Nice rant! :lol:

 

But do we have conclusive evidence for this?  I thought there were well-documented troubles with all kinds of BR prototype diesels. Some might say that's normal for any prototype, especially when it's "new technology" - and back then it was new technology for BR, wasn't it? 

 

Plus, from other people's long rants on the topic, I'd got the impression the general consensus was the opposite way round. i.e. we keep complaining that train operating companies (or Hornby) keep promising us new trains "soon", and then disappointing us because "soon" isn't "right now", and they (and the manufacturers)(or Hornby) keep spending more time and more money on testing new trains.

 

It looks like we want it both ways. Complain that "they" are taking too much time, and then complain that "they" didn't take long enough.

 

If the "track record" (sic) is correct, it's either the manufacturers that will try and skimp on the testing (and its cost), or (behind the scenes) the leasers object to paying the manufacturers to do that for long periods, as it increases the capital cost before they start leasing the trains to the TOCs. I refer my honourable colleague to the Velim railway test circuit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velim_railway_test_circuit - often used by manufacturers before introducing new trains to the UK, and widely publicised when they do so. e.g.

https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/new-trains-for-west-midlands-begin-testing-in-czech-republic

and

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/first-new-caledonian-sleeper-rolling-stock-arrives-at-velim-test-track-

and so on (you can do the search)

 

The last link is a good "case study" - testing was done, but not enough, and lots of problems when rushed into service.

e.g.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/1954274/michael-matheson-tackled-over-caledonian-sleeper-complaints/

 

 

 

Some testing is still required (mainly electrical emissions/interference testing) and I don't think anybody is accepting new trains into service which haven't completed 1,000 miles of 'fault free' running. (might not be the case with every individual set of some types - does anybody know for certain?).

 

But 1,000 fault free miles of empty running is not the same as the first few trips in passenger service - never has been, never will be because passengers have their own sort of impact on the way trains operate.

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1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

But 1,000 fault free miles of empty running is not the same as the first few trips in passenger service - never has been, never will be because passengers have their own sort of impact on the way trains operate.

 

Indeed, and the introduction of Mark 2d coaches, and Class 313 EMUs, both over 40 years ago, are good examples of that. Some things never change !

 

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4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Some testing is still required (mainly electrical emissions/interference testing) and I don't think anybody is accepting new trains into service which haven't completed 1,000 miles of 'fault free' running. (might not be the case with every individual set of some types - does anybody know for certain?).

 

But 1,000 fault free miles of empty running is not the same as the first few trips in passenger service - never has been, never will be because passengers have their own sort of impact on the way trains operate.

You're right, it isn't and even 1000 miles of empty running is something of a delusion, but it is a delusion beloved on the finance and contracts men. Knowledge of how to run a railway isn't a prerequisite for them.

 

Jim

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The Paddington station looks most impressive but I still do not like the fact that it has taken over the Eastbourne Terrace cab road which means the waiting and joining place for taxis is now much further from the Main Line side platforms and very much exposed to the weather (even if it is more conveniently sited for me when arriving on a stopping service).   I found it far more convenient to be dropped by a taxi in Praed Street back in December when heading for the 21.15 off Paddington; when the car driver asked if it would be ok I told him that he had saved me asking! 

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On 21/01/2020 at 13:58, caradoc said:

 

Indeed, and the introduction of Mark 2d coaches, and Class 313 EMUs, both over 40 years ago, are good examples of that. Some things never change !

 

What was up with Mk2d's? 

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That was hardly a failure. Interior door handles had been common in the past, with no great apparent problems. It was the passengers that had changed in their behaviour.

Very different from such incidents as the Blue Trains in Glasgow and more recently the current issues with the new Anglia fleet.

Jonathan

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1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

When first introduced they had interior door handles, however BR had to swiftly remove them after a number of accidents.

 

I thought that that problem emerged with the Mark 3s, which had a completely different door lock mechanism to the traditional BR type that dates back to the Mark 1s, with the horizontally operating "squeeze" handle that was protected inside its surround.

 

The door operating arrangements on the 313s, and the prototype PEP stock that preceded them were quite different, and possibly a little too novel for the travelling public of the day (unlike the manually operated sliding doors on the likes of the NER Tyneside stock and others, when people accepted that if you fell through your own actions out it hurt).

 

Jim

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6 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I could never understand why internal door handles were provided on the 4VEPs (at least at the end of their lives), but not on the other Mk1 EMUs that ran on the SW.

I could never understand why mk3's weren't either built with power operated sliding or plug doors, or electric door locks from scratch. For such modern, state of the art (for their time) vehicles, it seems remarkably backward.

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The whole of the World has changed in the past decade with the growth in accident claim solicitors and everything is someone else's fault!

 

It is not that long ago I saw a small child fall from Mk IV when the door was opened at a station stop and the father most indignant that this had happened and it had to be pointed out to him what had happened ! 

 

Strange how things that were second nature to some of us have been forgotten or not taught now.

 

Closing the doors and windows after getting off a train.  Not leaning on the doors.

 

How to stop a bus when stood at bus stop is another one.

 

The more that other people do for you the more that is expected!

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